NBA Postseason Best Bets (5/3)
Alex Christenson
Welcome to Sleepers, Busts and Bold Predictions for the 2023 fantasy football season. All summer, our analysts, two at a time, will preview all 32 NFL teams for the upcoming season. We’ll pick a pair of sleepers, a pair of busts and a pair of bold predictions. Sometimes they’ll be the same pick! Sometimes they will directly disagree! And that’s fine. Today: The New York Giants.
Below, Daniel Kelley and Dan Fornek tackle the Giants, starting with their picks in “The Answers,” then expanding on their picks in “The Explanation.”
2023 Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions: New York Giants
The Answers
Favorite Sleeper
Kelley: Sterling Shepard
Fornek: Parris Campbell
Biggest Bust
Kelley: Darren Waller
Fornek: Jalin Hyatt
Bold Prediction
Kelley: Daniel Jones Makes His First Pro Bowl
Fornek: Darren Waller Is the TE2
The Explanations
Sleepers
Kelley: Sterling Shepard
Normally we’d expect a player returning from a torn ACL — even one as early as Shepard’s last year, Week 3 — to ease back in to action. Maybe buy in on his second half, something like that. Except that we know from very clear history that the Giants are not remotely interested in easing Shepard in. Shepard tore his Achilles late in 2021, but he returned for Week 1 last year. In Weeks 1-3, he had 24 targets, 154 yards and a touchdown, at least 9.4 PPR points in every game. Then he tore his ACL. That’s (a) a less severe injury than an Achillies, with (b) a longer recovery time since. Shepard is one of 42 players with at least seven games of 10-plus targets over the last three years, and he did it despite playing only 22 games in that time (that’s 31.8% of his games with double-digit targets).
But here’s the important part: Price. Of those 46 players with as many games of double-digit targets as Shepard, only two (unemployed Jarvis Landry and buried-on-his-depth-chart Russell Gage) have a worse ADP. Shepard’s going after Allen Robinson, after Corey Davis, after Marvin Jones and Zach Ertz. He’s in a crowded receiver room in New York, with five receiver teammates going between 71 and 86 at receiver (Isaiah Hodgins WR71, Parris Campbell WR76, Jalin Hyatt WR82, Darius Slayton WR83, Wan’Dale Robinson WR86). Shepard? He’s available as WR111, essentially free in drafts. And we know the Giants want to use him if he’s healthy. Get those targets.
Fornek: Parris Campbell
Count me in on the Parris Campbell hype. Injuries marred his first three seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, but Campbell pulled it together during his fourth season to deliver solid fantasy production. The veteran wide receiver was targeted 91 times, catching 63 passes for 623 yards and three touchdowns. Those aren’t the most eye-popping numbers for a wide receiver, but it’s worth noting that Campbell would have led the 2022 Giants in receptions and receiving yards with that stat line.
Campbell profiles mainly as a slot receiver, which puts him in direct competition for targets with Wan’Dale Robinson and Sterling Shepard in the Giants’ offense. However, Campbell comes into the 2023 season as the only one of the slot receiver options not suffering from an ACL injury. The Giants spent all offseason moving Campbell around the offense, utilizing his lateral quickness as a receiver out of the backfield.
Ultimately, none of us knows what the Giants coaching staff has in store for the wide receiver room, and it shows in fantasy drafts. This uncertainty has five Giants wide receivers going off the board between WR70 and WR90. This ambiguity opens up the ability to potentially secure the Giants’ leading receiver at an extremely reasonable cost, provided you pick the right option.
Campbell’s contract and versatility suggest that the Giants view him in that light, especially (ironically) due to his health compared to the rest of New York’s slot weapons. He’s got an excellent chance to exceed his WR76 price tag this season.
Busts
Kelley: Darren Waller
I don’t blame the Giants in the least for trading for Darren Waller this offseason, especially since all it cost them was a single third-rounder that was already a bonus pick for them (the pick they acquired in the Kadarius Toney trade). But I also think it will end up looking a lot like a style-over-substance trade. In Waller’s two big years with the Raiders (2019 and 2020), his best pass-catching teammate was Nelson Agholor (in his obvious career year) … unless it was Henry Ruggs (as a raw rookie) … unless it was Tyrell Williams (who has had three targets since 2019). Hunter Renfrow was around, but before his breakout. Zay Jones was a waste in Las Vegas, as was Bryan Edwards.
The Giants don’t have much in the way of superstar receivers, but if you lined up every Giants wide receiver alongside every 2019-2020 Raiders receiver, you’d probably list (in some order) Isaiah Hodgins, Parris Campbell, Wan’Dale Robinson, Sterling Shepard and maybe others before or alongside any of Waller’s Raiders teammates. Is Waller the best of that group? Yeah, you could argue that, sure. But he’s not “Waller gets 145 targets while no one else tops 82” better. Add in Daniel Bellinger, who finished sixth in yards among rookie tight ends despite missing more than a month with a fractured eye socket, and Waller is going be a fringe TE1 at best.
Fornek: Jalin Hyatt
Contrary to Campbell above, one wide receiver who will be difficult to trust in 2023 is third-round rookie Jalin Hyatt. Hyatt is coming off an exceptional season with the Tennessee Volunteers that saw him win the 2022 Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s best wide receiver. Hyatt combined for just 40 receptions for 502 yards and four touchdowns in his first two seasons before erupting for 67 receptions for 1,267 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2022.
Despite the explosive junior season, Hyatt was a third-round pick due to the schemed-up nature of the Tennessee offense. Hyatt routinely operated off the ball in bunch sets which allowed the team to scheme up matchups to get him open down the field. The general perception of Hyatt is he’s a vertical threat with a very limited route tree. That seemed to ring true during OTAs when the Giants ran him with the third-string offense.
It seems like the best way for Hyatt to see the field during his first season would be an injury to Darius Slayton, the team’s primary deep receiver. There just doesn’t seem to be a realistic path to fantasy relevance in 2023.
Bold Predictions
Kelley: Daniel Jones Makes His First Pro Bowl
A bold prediction on Daniel Jones is a tough needle to thread in 2023. You could say he’ll set a career high in passing TDs or passing yards, but then that’s only 24 and 3,205, so it’s not like you’re going out on a limb. You could say he’ll have his best ever fantasy finish, but he could be better than he’s ever been and come up short of last year’s QB9 finish that benefited from a career-high 7 rushing touchdowns. So let’s go with his first Pro Bowl, which has the benefit of probably carrying most of the “best fantasy finish” load while also being a relatively low bar, given the paucity of QB excellence in the NFC.
Jones’ QB9 finish last year came despite the team scrounging wherever it could for receiving help. Richie James was buried on the depth chart early in the season. Isaiah Hodgins was buried on the Bills’ depth chart early in the season. Daniel Bellinger looked decent, then fractured his eye socket. Kadarius Toney and Kenny Golladay did whatever it was Kadarius Toney and Kenny Golladay did, Sterling Shepard and Wan’Dale Robinson tore their ACLs, Lawrence Cager somehow became relevant by the end of the year. Darius Slayton was essentially done in New York, inactive in Weeks 1-3 and only 10 targets through Week 6 before desperation led to him leading the team in receiving yards.
Now, all the names I listed above in the Shepard/Waller blurbs are available to Jones, and for whatever that pile of people might cannibalize each other’s fantasy numbers, they can only help Jones, who also gets a second year under reigning NFL Coach of the Year Brian Daboll. It’s all coming together for Jones, who could still not be the long-term answer in New York but do more than enough to be a Pro Bowler and borderline fantasy starter.
Fornek: Darren Waller Is the TE2
Injuries have cost Darren Waller most of the last two seasons. Waller has played just 17 games the last two years, but he still drew 136 targets. He caught 83 of those 136 targets for 1,053 yards and five touchdowns. Waller was traded to the Giants this offseason for a third-round pick and now finds himself in a situation where he will be the primary target earner in one of the more creative offenses in the NFL.
Waller played in just seven games last season but finished as a top-10 tight end in fantasy points in four weeks. Despite playing in an offense with a legitimate target hog wide receiver (Davante Adams), Waller averaged 8.5 targets per game. The veteran tight end still earns targets at a high rate, and now he finds himself in an offense with a bunch of complementary weapons. While injuries are a concern, Waller is appropriately priced as the TE7. Expect the Giants to split Waller out at wide receiver frequently, working him as the primary option in the passing attack.
The tight end position can be difficult to nail down outside of Travis Kelce, but the trick is to find the players who will be a top-two option in the passing offense. Waller is one of the few tight-end options that have a legitimate path to being the team’s top target earner. A healthy season will give him the ability to finish as the TE2 in all of fantasy.
